Shades of Blue
by gryffindorgirl98
Summary: Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones. It will always stay blue. And Victoire Weasley knows that if anyone will stick around through anything, it's Teddy Lupin. The boy with the blue hair. But this time, the boy with the blue hair may have signed up for more than he's willing to take on.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Hello! Welcome to Shades of Blue, or as I'm hoping it will be, a tale of love, laughter, tomfoolery and boys with blue hair. This has been burning a hole in my documents folder for over a year and the publication of this first chapter by no means says that Unbreakable is to remain unfinished. I really feel like giving Teddy and Victoire a shot and I hope you're all ready to ride along with me through what is sure to be a fun journey. Please leave a review if you're so inclined! ~yours in eternity, Amy xx

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" _Blue is the only color which maintains its own character in all its tones… it will always stay blue; whereas yellow is blackened in its shades, and fades away when lightened; red when darkened becomes brown, and diluted with white is no longer red, but another color— pink."_

 _~Raoul Dufy_

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Chapter One

When It Rains, It Pours

Victoire really hated running. The action in itself was all too physically taxing and left her chest bursting. Though she had fairly long legs for her fairly average height, and her dad had always said she had just the right "sporty build" to be a Chaser, Victoire didn't care much for anything whose only purpose was to exhaust you. Life wasn't supposed to be miserable after all.

With this firm belief, Victoire very rarely indulged in anything that didn't delight her. This was made possible because of her determination to see the bright side of reasonably every situation. Still, Victoire found herself running down the fifth floor corridor at eight fifty two in the morning on a Tuesday morning and this, though not altogether unfamiliar, was a scene with very little redeeming light.

She knew, heaving for breath as she hooked a sharp left around the commemorative statue of Egbert the Egregious, that all the running she had somehow found herself familiar with over her six years at Hogwarts came down to the night she had been sorted. She fondly remembered the wide brim of the hat sinking well over her bright blue eyes and hiding the rest of her classmates and the larger-than-life Great Hall from view. In a way, this had made her less nervous. She was assured by both her parents of course that it didn't matter what house she ended up in. But Victoire was inquisitive (or what her younger cousin James called "nosy") and after careful digging, she knew her father had been a Gryffindor. Wouldn't he want her to be one too?

It had felt like several days had passed while the musty old hat sat on her head and spoke in her mind like those weird plastic white things attached to wires her Aunt Hermione had shown her and explained, though Victoire couldn't fathom the appeal, Muggles used them to listen to music privately. She wondered if the hat was laughing at her while she thought about the— ear-heads were they called? No that wasn't right. Headphones.— but in the end, the hat didn't say much of consequence. She admittedly didn't remember much of her Sorting. All she could strongly recall was the cry from the ripped mouth above her that announced to the whole hall "Ravenclaw!" And soon Vic was steered toward a table filled with unfamiliar faces wearing blue and bronze and beating their fists against the table for the new arrival.

Victoire loved being a Ravenclaw. Everyone was just as inquisitive as she was and there were no secrets that soon weren't discovered in the airy Ravenclaw tower. Vic fell in love with her roommates and her classes and the feeling of being part of something really special. She loved it. Just not right now.

It was common knowledge to every Ravenclaw student that it was a necessity to check your bag at least three times before leaving every morning. The reason took shape in the form of the sadistic doorknocker that took delight in making students late by holding them up with its more ridiculous riddles when it knew you were in a hurry. And in a hurry Victoire Weasley was. She had realized her fatal mistake the minute she had left the Great Hall with Cora and Lucy on their way to NEWT level Transfiguration. Her beautifully written report that took up two entire rolls of parchment, along with a solid evening that could have been spent beating Cora in Gobstones, was not safely in her bag but sitting vulnerably on a homework table in the Common Room. Victoire had wasted no time in dashing off to the marble staircase while her friends simply laughed and called after her to meet them in the classroom.

And thus, the running was inevitable. At least six or seven mornings a month would find Victoire Weasley sprinting down corridors and toppling down groups of first years like dominos in her haste to get back to the tower. It was almost a routine after all this time and some of the other Hogwarts residents had begun to appreciate its usability as a timekeeping strategy.

" _Did Victoire Weasley run by yet?"_

" _Haven't seen her."_

" _Perfect. Let's start a game of Exploding Snap before class!"_

At eight fifty four in the morning Victoire emerged from the top step of the winding staircase that led up to Ravenclaw tower panting. The door was only a merciful few feet away. She leaned against the nearest wall to catch up to her breath, which was far ahead of her, and jumped when someone tapped on her shoulder.

"Forget something again?" She whipped around, already knowing who she would see, and aimed a punch that didn't carry much force in it to the shoulder of Teddy Lupin. He didn't flinch when her fist found its target and she huffed impatiently.

"Tell me something, Edward. Do you think it's a good idea to scare the living daylights out of someone when they're standing on the edge of a staircase?" Teddy smirked.

"Come on, Vic. You know I'd just levitate you back upstairs if you fell. And don't call me Edward, it sounds stuffy."

"What are you doing here?" Vic asked, pushing off from the wall and away from the unsafe edge of the stairs. Teddy followed her to the door.

"Waiting for Reese. He's late, as usual."

Reese was a nickname for Richard Quick and he was in Ravenclaw with Victoire (a fact that neither of the two had ever really enjoyed). Due to this and the fact that you could depend upon Reese to be late to anything and everything, Teddy was often found hanging around that very spot. Vic didn't know why she had even questioned the situation.

"Bad luck, Ted. You're going to be late too. I saw him asleep on a couch half an hour ago." Vic said. Teddy groaned in frustration.

" _You're_ going to be late." He remarked, eyeing her with an amused look. She let out an impatient sigh and marched up to the door, hand raised to grasp the knocker. But then the door was miraculously thrown open from inside. Vic was ready to drop to her knees and kiss the feet of whoever had just saved her a few more precious minutes— until Reese's face was in front of her.

"Ted!" He exclaimed upon seeing Teddy, who shot him a grin. Reese's tall and gangly frame was blocking Vic's way through the door and she tried to push past him. He glanced down at her as if she were some gnat buzzing around him he hadn't noticed until now.

"Vic! Good to see you! Aren't you running a bit late to be up here?"

"Aren't you awake a bit early?" She snapped. "Let me through! My paper is in there!"

If Reese cared at all that her Transfiguration grade was on the line, he didn't show it. His smile grew wider.

"See, Vic, I can't let you do that. You didn't answer a riddle to the door and therefore, you may not be a Ravenclaw."

Victoire stared at him in mild shock while Teddy stifled his laughter behind her.

"You know very well I've been a Ravenclaw for six years, but this will remind you in case you've forgotten!" She swung her bag at Reese and with Ravenclaw House Seeker reflexes, he caught it by the straps and handed it back to her.

"You could be a Slytherin in disguise. Ever heard of Polyjuice Potion? Besides, I'm going to be fair. If you can answer my riddle, you can get through." Reese looked much too pleased with himself. Vic bit the soft inside of her cheek to keep from shouting at him again and smoothed down her hair.

Reese cleared his throat and spoke in his most Professor-like voice, must to her displeasure. "A warlock rode his pet hippogriff to town on Friday, stayed for three days, and then returned to his home on Friday. How is this possible?"

Vic rolled her eyes. Reese's riddle wasn't even original. And it was easy. A first year could have answered it with ease.

"The hippogriff's name was Friday." She said. Before Reese had time to step aside, she barreled past him and into the common room. There was the essay, lying untouched on the homework table nearest her favorite window that overlooked the mountains to the west. She snatched it off the table, scattered a trio of second year girls as they came through the Girl's Dormitories, and was taking the spiral staircase two steps at a time down to the Transfiguration classroom in record time.

Not for the first time, Vic wondered if she should have argued with the Sorting Hat's decision and made herself a Gryffindor. Not because she thought her dad would have liked to have a daughter in Gryffindor (there was Dominique for that) but she probably would have saved herself a world of trouble, not to mention a good chunk of the mornings.

There was applause when Victoire entered the Transfiguration classroom at last, wheezing for much needed air and calves cramping but all the same, punctual. In all actuality, the applause was a bit less grand than it sounded to Victoire. Cora and Lucy's polite clapping was accompanied by the sounds of rumbling thunder outside and they chuckled as Vic sidled over to her desk behind theirs. The rest of the class, quite used to her dramatic entrances, didn't appear to have noticed or cared.

"What was my time?" She wasted no breath before seeking out the answer to her question from Cora, the resident human oracle and Ravenclaw genius. Said genius smirked, the dimple in her cheek that Victoire was very jealous of standing out against her olive skin.

"About seven minutes. That's your fastest yet."

Victoire patted herself lightly on the back in celebration of her newfound lightness of foot.

"Forget your homework again?" Wesley Bibbitt laughed. Her table partner's parchment was strewn across the desk, his essay visibly unfinished. There were several splotchy ink marks spattered across his work as if he had written it blindfolded and riding on Hagrid's shoulders piggy-back style through the forest. The sentence he was currently working on was so illegible Vic found it hard to believe Wesley was versed in Common English at all.

She pushed aside Wesley's papers to make room for herself and sat down, pulling out quills and her gloriously retrieved essay. Was it just her happiness at its return or was there a slight glow pulsating around the edges of her paper? Could her paper be the messiah of all papers, come to rescue the masses from McGonagall's harsh grading quill? Did papers _have_ messiahs? Perhaps McGonagall would boost her grade.

"Wes, ask a stupid question—"

"Get a Slytherin to answer, I know." He grunted in reply, hastily scribbling what he probably considered the words of a genius across the last few inches of his parchment. Victoire couldn't pretend not to be disappointed when McGonagall had first assigned the seats in their sixth year Transfiguration class. Cora and Lucy, luckiest of their infamous trio completed by Vic, had ended up together as they almost always had. But Victoire was perpetually positive and refused to mope. Realistically, Wesley and she made a brilliant match. She was always almost late and he was almost always procrastinating. Two wrongs made a right, or at least they would if Vic had anything to say about it.

McGonagall, unfazed by the stormy weather outside and the atmosphere that came with it during a double block period, entered from her office and class promptly began. This was one of the classes Vic had deduced from six careful years of observation in which communication between pupils was a non-negotiable no. This was another good reason Vic was paired with Wesley. Neither of them really had many important things to say to one another and so far this year, Vic hadn't gotten into trouble for being too "chatty".

Still, where there was a wand there was a way. Vic wasn't surprised when a lavender paper folded into a swan landed neatly on her desk from a cleverly hidden levitating charm. McGonagall, caught in the throes of telling off a student for "accidentally transfiguring their homework into their dinner napkin and then using it", didn't notice when she picked up the paper swan and held it in her lap. It seemed a crime to ruin what was such beautiful work but Vic unfolded the note quickly and pretended to be fiddling with a pleat in her skirt while she skimmed the curly writing that undoubtedly belonged to Lucy.

 _I have news for you and you won't like it._

Vic frowned. Lucy was known for being practical. She was a natural born mum and often took to treating Cora and Vic (but mostly Vic) as her children. She didn't typically tolerate note passing in class and this told Vic the news was grave indeed. Had Amelia Coates found out Vic was the one who accidentally charmed all of her white tights pink? Or maybe sleazy Garrett Fairchild was going to make a pass at her again, although how Lucy could have known this Vic wasn't sure. She glanced up at the back of Lucy's honey blonde hair, but Lucy didn't turn around. Vic would have to wait until the end of class to hear what she had to say.

"What's that?" Wesley whispered, jutting his chin in the direction of the note in her lap.

"A howler." She whispered back. He rolled his eyes.

"No it's not. Can I read it?"

"In a word Wes: no."

"Why?"

"It's private."

"I'm your table partner."

"So?"

"Why was it a swan?"

The whispered exchange continued on for several minutes until McGonagall had properly banished the poor student to the land of humiliation and all attention was back on her.

The next hour was a silent affair accompanied only by the scratching of the quills and McGonagall's voice. The little note in Vic's lap seemed to weigh heavier every time she thought about it and outside, the storm had broken. Thunder clapped and lightning flashed. Wesley doodled a little Quidditch player on the right corner of his parchment and a bludger in the left. With a smart little charm concealed by a fake coughing fit of Vic's, the bludger on the paper came to life and flew through the inky words, ricocheting off the curling edges of the parchment and doing its best to unseat the player in the corner.

Class was business as usual until something wonderful happened. The door creaked open and McGonagall looked up, her no-nonsense lips often found in a tight line pursed into a surprised "oh". And there in the doorway stood an angel.

Victoire had never really seen an angel. And to be frank, she wasn't sure she believed in them anyway. But every time Emmett Carmichael passed her in the hallway, her faith grew just a bit more. If Vic could draw him, she would put little fluffy wings on his back and a softly glowing halo hovering just above his slightly curled brown locks. Merlin, he was gorgeous. A top notch stud.

"Professor Dearborn asked me to drop this off for you." He said. His bag was falling off his shoulder ever so slightly and Vic almost wished it would. She would get up, float across the floor, pick up his books and see the title of one she had found in the Ravenclaw personal library. They would start a conversation. Who else knew what could ensue from such an encounter?

"Are you okay? You're drooling." Wesley commented. Vic brought her sleeve up to her mouth and shot a glare at Wesley that sent his amused smile away. McGonagall crossed the room and took a simple letter from Emmett, not bothering to read it in a hurry.

"Thank you Mister Carmichael. I trust I don't have to remind you to get back to class in a hurry."

"Not at all, Professor." He smiled and his dimples— he had dimples for the love of Merlin!— imprinted themselves in his perfect face. McGonagall had a soft spot for all the Gryffindors and she sent a rare smile Emmett's way while he turned and left as quickly as he had come. Victoire had always hated goodbyes.

The class stretched itself out for another thirty minutes and when the bell rang, Vic felt the note in her lap's presence more heavily than ever. She stuffed her things unceremoniously into her bag and waited for Cora to carefully fold away her notes. She decided to wait until they were out in the corridor, away from Wesley's curious ears, to put Lucy on trial.

"Well, what's this bad news?" She pressed, her voice dropping slightly. Cora didn't react which meant she already knew about it.

Lucy smiled her practical smile, no teeth. They had a free period next, thanks to their otherwise grueling NEWTs schedules, and they were headed for a favorite quiet place at the entrance to the covered bridge. It was maddening waiting for Lucy to answer her but Vic knew as they pushed their way through the crowds of students making their way to classes that it would be impossible to hear her over the chatter. She passed Teddy with Reese who flashed a grin at her that she promptly ignored. Lucy beamed at Reese which made him stumble into Teddy and caused the girls to go into fits of giggles.

"Alright you lot." Lucy announced, perched on the ledge of the bridge and leaned against the castle wall next to it. This would have been dangerous if there wasn't a protective force field around the bridge (and Vic didn't want to know which unfortunate student had made that precaution a reality). From her position on the floor, Vic saw Lucy as a much older and wiser figure with news that would seal her fate. And partially, that was true. Lucy was a Prefect.

"We had our Prefect's meeting in the carriage on the train, you remember?" Lucy started. Vic nodded.

"Cora and I couldn't find a compartment for an hour until you cleared out of there! It was miserable."

"Sorry!" Cora moaned. "Colby wouldn't leave me alone. He almost made us late." Colby was Cora's recently dubbed _ex_ -boyfriend. He was taking the breakup well— or that is, he refused to acknowledge it.

"Anyway, Head Boy Ted… Head Ted. I like that." Lucy chuckled to herself. "He was telling us about the meetings we're going to have this term and the rotation schedules for watch and he scheduled your lover boy Carmichael for evenings until nine on Wednesday and Thursday."

Victoire pondered this. "Are you telling me this so I can stalk him? Because I hadn't thought of that until now. You're sick."

Lucy waved her hand impatiently. Cora had re-enchanted the note still in Victoire's lap and it had folded itself back into a swan, fluttering its wings and taking flight.

"I'm getting you ready for the actual news. Your excitable little heart may not be able to take it." Lucy spoke in her voice that reminded Vic of her mum. "He told Head Ted that he can't do Wednesday evenings because…"

"Because what?" Vic pushed, her heart beating a little faster than usual. The swan made a graceful swoop around her knee and soared toward Lucy's dangling left foot. Lucy bit her lip.

"He's going to be tutoring his girlfriend those nights and there's no way he can let her down."

The rain stopped very suddenly. Or at least, it did for Victoire. In fact the whole world had gone sort of quiet and still. The swan flew in slow motion, Lucy's foot swung back and forth like a pendulum through molasses. Emmett had a girlfriend.

Okay. That was okay. He wasn't really Victoire's. She just liked to look at him. It's not like they had ever really even spoken to each other. It was just fine. Wasn't it?

"I don't know why you thought you needed to tell me that." Vic finally said. The storm came back in, winds whipping the rain into their sheltered cover. Lucy pulled her cloak more tightly around herself and wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion.

"You're not upset?"

"Why would I be upset?" Vic tried her best to sound offhand. Cora was looking at her as though she had just been told about a beloved family member's death. "I fancy him, that's all. I don't really know him. I'm actually pleased."

"Pleased?" Cora repeated in disbelief.

"Now that Emmett has a girlfriend, I have to get over him. It's what sensible witches do." Cora snorted. Vic ignored this. "I can do more important things now. Like Arithmancy. Or start collecting something like… fancy buttons."

Lucy looked skeptical but Vic kept up a very convincing front. If she hadn't felt the pangs of violent heartbreak deep in her chest, she might even believe she didn't care that Emmett had a girlfriend.

"If that's how you really feel, then I'm proud of you. But please don't go and start collecting fancy buttons. Wherever would you keep them?"

Vic laughed at Lucy and the three of them watched the swan make a brave dive out from under the cover of the bridge and immediately, it was caught up in the wind of the storm. Sadly, it was battered down by the rain until it was out of sight.

"It was too beautiful to live." Cora decided mournfully. They packed up their things in an unspoken agreement that it was time to leave. And Vic didn't even suggest that they take the long way to Divination because she knew they would see Emmett on his way to Charms that way and now, _that_ Victoire was in the past.

Because Victoire Weasley was a positive witch if she was nothing else. No dark spot ruined her day if she could let it and this was just another example of that. But there was that itching, gnawing cry in her heart that said it was the end of an era. Vic had practically loved Emmett since the first day she had seen him on the train her first year.

If she didn't love Emmett, what was she? The thought was distressing. Even that was a riddle the doorknocker couldn't answer and Vic silently vowed to herself she would never have to know the answer.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Hello to anyone passing by or here to stay. I'm quite excited to be continuing Vic's story and I hope you are too. Many thanks to bhatanil919 for your lovely review, it made me dance like a small child in my seat. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. ~yours in eternity, Amy xx

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 **Disclaimer:** J.K. Rowling rocks my socks (and yours too). She owns everything and I own nothing. She is the princess and I am the pauper (and we could make a fantastic sing-along movie about it if she would just answer my e-mails).

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Chapter Two

By Random Chance

Victoire was quite over Emmett by the morning.

So much over him that she imagined if he were to wake suddenly in the middle of the night, it would be because she was hovering above him and repeating "I'm literally over you, Emmett Carmichael!"

And then she stopped imagining this scenario because it was weird, even for a Ravenclaw's mind. Of course, she didn't tell Cora and Lucy just how heartbroken she was. They would never let her mourn properly if they knew the truth and they would think she was sillier than they already did. No, Victoire decided she would feel the pain of her lost love for Emmett privately and because this was a somewhat romantic notion, she embraced it.

"You know, Reese Quick isn't all that bad looking." Lucy said matter of factly at two minutes past eight on the Wednesday morning of the week following the dreadful news. Her tone was utterly casual; she could have been discussing Gringotts bank policies (which she had done in the past) instead of the perceived attractiveness of Reese Quick.

Victoire nearly choked on her toast at this and Cora hiccupped, though this could have been because she had drank her pumpkin juice too quickly and not as a reaction to Lucy's statement.

"What would ever possess you to say that?" Vic said, eyeing Lucy carefully. Lucy never talked about boys. Pursued them, yes. She was the most popular among the males of Hogwarts out of their trio and over their six years, Lucy didn't go a week without being asked on a date. This was because she didn't date seriously, the opposite of Cora. Cora and Colby had been a couple for two years before she broke it off at the platform.

Lucy kept her chin high at Victoire's question and began spreading jam over her muffin. Vic turned her head slightly to glance down the length of the Ravenclaw table and located Reese with his friends. His mouth was currently stuffed with what looked like eight pieces of bacon. The charm was too much for Vic and she returned her attention to her friends, trying hard not to laugh.

"He's not unattractive!" Lucy insisted. Her green eyes flashed viciously for a moment but her motherly smile softened the glare. "He's got good bone structure. And his bum is fit."

Cora giggled uncontrollably, hiccupping into her tea.

"When did you start noticing Reese's bum? And why?" Vic further questioned. Emmett had a nice bum.

"I haven't been purposely staring at him bum, Vic. _You_ might be the kind of girl who does that but I have more important things to care about."

"I'm not the one who brought it up." Vic countered. Lucy shrugged.

"Davy Rosenbloom asked me out yesterday." She said, again spouting off the news like it was her Potions essay. Cora gasped.

"Davy! You've always said he's got—"

"The kind of face you bring home to your mother and send crying back to his." Lucy finished for Cora with a coy smile on her face.

"So what did you say to him?" Vic asked.

"No." Lucy said simply. "He only asked me out because Emily Wood wouldn't go out with him again. She said he was handsy."

"You've never cared about 'handsy' blokes before. _You're_ handsy!" Vic gaped at Lucy who looked completely unaffected by this. All around them, breakfast was coming to a close and students were removing themselves from their tables to start heading to class. Vic grabbed an apple out of a gold dish before it could disappear and slipped it in to her bag. She allowed herself to be pushed along with the rest of the Ravenclaws out the doors of the Great Hall and reunited with her two friends.

"Reese!" Lucy called. Reese was waiting for someone, probably Teddy, and looked around quickly at his name. His eyes landed on Lucy and the corner of his mouth twitched up into a smirk. He began to saunter their way.

"Morning, Luce. Cora, Vicky." He nodded at each of them in turn and Victoire pretended to gag.

"Where are you headed?" Lucy asked.

"Muggle Studies." He answered. Never before had Vic been an audience to such riveting conversation.

But Lucy brightened more than the sunny sky peeking through the Great Hall's ceiling. "Do you ever wonder if Muggles study us as much as we study them?"

Reese blinked slowly. "Not really, no."

"They mostly stick to American witch-lore. The Salem trials and all that. They dismissed it all as Muggle villagers seeking out a scapegoat for their fear and confusion and that a lot of Muggles were killed without any reason. But there were wizards in that area. And then, they wrote a play about it based off of McCarthyism in the 1950's." Lucy said all this very quickly and Reese looked as though he had never properly seen Lucy Boot, Ravenclaw prefect and sixth year, before.

"Wow," He breathed, lifting a hand up to his already very tousled hair. Victoire thought that was just carelessness. How could anyone let their hair get to such a state that it resembled an actual nest? "How do you know all of that?"

"I take University classes over holiday."

"You know, I'm really shit at Muggle Studies. I don't even remember why I took it in the first place." Reese said. Lucy smiled pleasantly but Vic knew what lay underneath that smile. The only thing that wasn't practical about Lucy was her approach to her love life. She was ready to pounce and Reese was her unwitting victim.

"I'll tutor you if you'd like. I'm free on Thursdays." Lucy said, very offhandedly.

At that moment, Teddy walked up to their unlikely group. Vic smiled at him as his eyes darted between Lucy and Reese. She made a mental note to explain to him later the scene that was unfolding before their very eyes.

"Yeah, that'd be great." Reese said, his smile very wide now and his eyes fixed on Lucy. The Great Hall was considerably thinned out by now and the group separated as they made their way into the Entrance Hall, the girls downstairs for Potions and the boys out into the courtyard.

"How did you do that?" Cora asked, evidently amazed at Lucy's actions.

"Animal instinct." Vic answered for Lucy. The apple in her bag kept smacking against her leg as she walked and she readjusted the strap on her shoulder.

"How do you even tutor somebody in Muggle Studies?" Cora continued. She shook her head, hiccupped, and then stopped abruptly for the girls had come to a halt at the door outside their Potions classroom.

It was funny how life happened all by random chance. If Lucy hadn't ventured to think Reese Quick was "not all that bad looking", they wouldn't have stopped to talk to him after breakfast. And if they had not stopped to talk to Reese, they would not have been just a few minutes late on their way to sixth-year NEWT level Potions. And if they had arrived just a few minutes earlier, they would have seen nothing but a moth fluttering around the low torchlight that illuminated the dungeon walls. But they _did_ stop to talk to Reese and they _were_ just a few minutes late in walking to Potions. Because of this, they were there when Emmett Carmichael was to be found attached at the mouth with a dark haired girl in Hufflepuff robes.

Victoire screamed.

Looking back on the scene later, Victoire would remember she hadn't really screamed. But a strange noise had issued from her and later Cora would describe it as alike to "a dying cat".

Whatever it had sounded like, Vic's scream alerted the couple before them they were not alone as they had clearly thought. There was a horrible sound like a suction-cup being pulled away from a surface as Emmett and the girl broke apart. Emmett merely looked confused (and beautiful in the low lighting). The girl looked horrified. Her cheeks went violently pink and Vic was almost too mortified to notice that the girl had long dark hair to her waist and green eyes. Damn it. She was pretty.

"I'm so sorry!" Vic said, wishing with more effort than she had ever put into anything that she would die right there on the spot. "I—"

She broke off. Emmett was looking at her expectantly— he was looking at her. His eyes were trained on Victoire's and for a moment she forgot how to speak.

"She's ill! Breakfast didn't agree with her today." Lucy said for her very loudly and with so much conviction, Victoire almost believed her. "That was a close one, Vic."

Emmett and the girl still looked very confused but Lucy's hurried explanation seemed to have done the job. The trio swept past them very quickly, Vic being herded along by Cora, and the couple was out of sight. Mercifully, Cora and Lucy waited until they were seated in the very back left row, and the Hufflepuff girl had found her seat next to two other girls in the front, to say anything.

"Are you hell-bent on making him think you're a loon?" Lucy whisper-yelled. Professor McGregor was only middle aged but the girls had suspected him for being hard of hearing in their second year and they had always been successful at keeping up a quiet conversation in his class.

"That was literally an out-of-body experience. I think I was bewitched." Vic said slowly. She still felt the after-effects of what had just happened and she thought she very well might be sick in her cauldron.

"Who is she anyway?" Cora asked, slyly pretending to be reading her notes while she peered up at the front of the room and the back of the girl's head. Vic noted unhappily that the girl's hair was very sleek and shiny.

"Does it matter who she is?" Vic moaned, sinking lower in her seat with every passing second. "I can't believe I did that. He's going to think this is what I do now! Victoire Weasley: that Ravenclaw girl who almost throws up and makes weird noises."

"Don't be silly, that's not what you do. And he probably won't even remember it." Lucy said. Typically whenever Lucy decided to put an end to the matter, as she just had, Victoire was persuaded just by the convincing tone of her voice. But this was not a matter of logic and problem-solving. This was a matter of the heart and Victoire's was broken. Not just broken; broken and then ripped open by a pretty little brunette in Hufflepuff robes.

Potions went on as it always did after that. Cora's potion was perfect which meant Victoire's potion was perfect by extension because Cora always shared her notes. Professor McGregor was more than pleased when he arrived at their table and all but inserted his head into their cauldrons.

"Excellent!" He exclaimed at Cora's and Lucy's potions. After thorough inspection of Victoire's, he scribbled something on his paper with a smile.

"Another victory for Victoire!" He said jauntily and Vic pretended to laugh. That joke had been stone cold in its grave for years but McGregor insisted on digging it back up every time Victoire so much as answered a question correctly.

The girl swiveled around in her seat at McGregor's latest exclamation and though the Professor's ample size covered her from view, Vic could feel the Hufflepuff's eyes on her. As class ended and Cora and Lucy packed away their ingredients, Vic took a deep breath and crossed the flagstone floor to the Hufflepuff girls' table in the front.

"Hi." She said, or rather choked the word out. "I'm Victoire."

The girl looked up at her with her mouth slightly open. "Oh, um, right. I'm Katherine."

Vic meant to say something else but she was noticing Katherine's lips were very full (she had always detested her own for being thinner) and her nails were a lovely shade of lavender. That was a good word for Katherine the Hufflepuff last seen kissing Emmett Carmichael. Lovely.

"Lyle." Katherine said slowly. "Katherine Lyle." Vic jumped a little.

"Sorry, I'm not as clever as my House would suggest." Katherine laughed a little at this and Victoire tried to relax.

"I just really wanted to apologize for outside earlier. I didn't mean to scare you and Em— I mean, your boyfriend."

Katherine Lyle shrugged, a smile growing on her face. "It's completely fine. We were just startled. I don't normally kiss boys in corridors. I guess I'm just not used to it, I jumped." She looked sheepish but also very pretty. A pretty sheep.

"Oh, it's just as normal as anything here. Anyway I just didn't want to be like this bad memory for you now. That's all, I've got to run!" Vic felt the words coming out of her mouth but didn't quite remember connecting them to her brain beforehand. The next thing she knew she was all but running (again) out of the Potions classroom to a very confused Cora and Lucy outside.

Vic shook off their questions and insisted they just go to Defense Against the Dark Arts. Luckily, Lucy launched into a debate with Cora over something (Vic vaguely picked out the words "grindylow" and "holiday" and "Even Beater's sister"). This left her time to dwell on what an eventful morning she had already had and the worst part was not the scream that would now probably manifest itself into a ghost and haunt that corridor.

The worst part was that Katherine Lyle was the sweetest, most innocent girl Victoire had ever had the displeasure to meet. And she couldn't even hate her.

After a decidedly uneventful Defense Against the Dark Arts class, Victoire Weasley had decided to really and truly move on from Emmett Carmichael. Witnessing his snogging session with Katherine Lyle had only been step one. Step two would be far more entertaining in Vic's opinion and this was because step two was to find someone better to set her prospects on.

"Is anyone really better looking than Emmett though?" Cora asked at lunch after Victoire relayed her not-yet-decided-on-how-many-steps-plan. Lucy nudged Cora as Vic slumped to her arms on the table with a moan.

"There has to be someone." Lucy said assuredly. She began casting her eyes over the Great Hall.

"I would ask Colby to introduce you to one of his friends, but I don't want him to think I'm speaking to him again." Cora said sadly.

"It's alright, Cor. His friends were pretty ugly anyway." Vic said, picking at her Shepherd's pie. Cora nodded in agreement.

"Maybe that's why I thought he was cute."

Lucy poked Victoire in the arm, hard. "What about Adam Prescott? He's available."

Vic craned her neck to see Adam Prescott seated at the Gryffindor table. He was reading something and kept missing his mouth with his fork in his distraction. She shook her head negatively.

"Alfred Cattermole?"

"Ergh, no. He sneezes a lot."

"Alfie's nice." Cora supplied rather unhelpfully.

Lucy bit her lip, and then brightened. "Xander Rhodri!"

Vic tried to remember just who this was. "In Slytherin? No. He tried to hex me once in second year and I made my quill chase him down the corridor. We haven't spoken since."

The rest of the day went on much the same as lunch had started. Lucy would look for someone, wildly blurt out the name to Victoire, who would reject it, and they would find themselves back at step one. It was all very discouraging and more than once, Vic thought about escaping to the girls toilets and drowning herself in a sink there.

Dinner was a somber affair. Victoire tried hard not to look for Katherine Lyle at the Hufflepuff table next to them but it was almost an impossible task. If she leaned just so to the right on her elbow and craned her neck just enough so that it could still be perceived as natural, she could see the corner of Katherine Lyle's horribly sleek dark hair and the collar of her Hufflepuff robes. How could she not glimpse the girl that had clearly won over Emmett Carmichael's heart?

"Vic, I know exactly who you could use to get over Emmett." Lucy announced, snapping Victoire out of a daydream in which Katherine Lyle broke up with Emmett Carmichael for Alfred Cattermole and Vic consoled Emmett by taking him down to the lake…

"What was that?" She asked, sitting up straight. She had been staring at Katherine again. Lucy and Cora gave each other knowing looks.

"I said I know who you should go after now that Emmett's taken." Lucy said, not skipping a beat. "Teddy Lupin."

Vic waited for the "gotcha!" moment but there was none. Lucy seemed perfectly at ease as she spooned more potatoes onto her plate.

"Are you mad? I've known Teddy since we were babies. I can't just up and date him!" Vic half-yelled. It was a good thing the Ravenclaw table was used to Victoire Weasley's dramatic tendencies, for none of them paid much attention to this statement.

"Look at it logically. He's good looking. He plays Quidditch. He's Head Boy for Merlin's sake. And he's friends with Reese and you could mention me."

Cora giggled as Vic realized what Lucy was getting at.

"Alright, you've got a one track mind. Why are you suddenly so obsessed with Reese?"

"I'm not. I'm trying to help my good friend find someone to expel her energy on. Someone whose name doesn't begin with 'Emmett' and end with 'Taken'."

Vic rolled her eyes and thankfully, a third year tried to charm their water goblet into a Butterbeer float five seats down and caused a welcome distraction. Victoire almost forgot about the sad lack of eligible males at Hogwarts until something very peculiar happened.

Lucy was enlisted to help guide some first years that (even after two weeks of school in session) had forgotten their way to the Ravenclaw Common Room. Cora was led away by Michael Crosby, a Hufflepuff she was tutoring, in a last minute distress call to the library. And so it was alone that Victoire slung her bag over her shoulder and made to leave the Great Hall for her much needed bed upstairs. Not five feet away from the table, someone's hand landed on Victoire's shoulder and pulled her rather roughly around. She yelped in surprise and found herself face to face with a very puffy faced Gryffindor girl.

Sobbing, the girl croaked out "I just hope you know how lucky you are!"

Vic looked around her, hoping someone would see the situation and intervene. But most everyone was already filing through the double doors. The girl wailed loudly in between words, tears streaming down her red face. She looked maybe Victoire's age, but it was very hard to tell. At the moment, she most resembled Moaning Myrtle.

"I'm sorry, what?" Vic asked, rather bravely in her opinion. The last thing she wanted to do was entertain this crying girl. Didn't she have friends that would be wondering where she was right now? Or a keeper? Someone?

"You're with the best bloke in the whole world and you don't even care!" The girl shrieked, another sob escaping her. Victoire's bag slipped off her shoulder in her shock.

"Excuse me, I'm with _what_ bloke?"

Victoire's response was clearly too much for the Gryffindor. She threw her hands up in the air and ran off, her sobs heard clearly until she had receded far away enough upstairs. Vic stood quite still, shocked at what had just happened. What boy was she supposed to be dating?

"That wasn't supposed to happen." A voice said from somewhere behind her. Vic jumped but when she spun around, about to reach for her wand after the day too mad to even begin to comprehend, it was just Teddy.

She exhaled, withdrawing her hand from the pocket of her robes.

"You saw that?" She asked, nodding her head in the direction where the girl had run off.

Teddy was nervously fiddling with his yellow and black striped tie. "Yeah, I saw enough."

"Do you know her? I've never even met her."

"Whatever she said, don't worry about it." He said very quickly. Vic raised an eyebrow.

"She said something about me seeing someone and not even caring about it. Which isn't true to begin with and secondly… hang on. You said you saw what happened. Didn't you hear her for yourself?"

Teddy wouldn't meet Vic in the eyes.

"Edward Remus Lupin." She said, her voice growing very cold. "I've had a long day. And this particular long day has made me so exhausted, I might just sleep here tonight. If you know anything about what just happened and you don't tell me I will write to Aunt Andromeda and tell her about the summer before fourth year!"

Teddy blanched. The summer before fourth year was on a strict "we don't talk about it" basis in the Potter-Weasley-Lupin family. He tugged at his shirt collar like it was too tight around his neck. Above them the sky was tinged with pink, bathing the two of them in a rosy sunset glow.

"Right," Teddy said gruffly. "So that girl's name is Evanna. And over the holiday, Evanna and I got to writing each other letters."

Victoire nodded. She remembered Teddy spending a lot of time at the kitchen table at the Burrow, long rolls of parchment in front of him and his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth (as was per usual for anything Teddy had to write).

"And it was going great for a little while but… Evanna is a little eccentric. And I'm not sure that's really what I want in a relationship so I tried to break it off but she wouldn't listen to me." He took a deep breath. Vic hadn't even realized she was tapping her foot in her frustration. The noise seemed ten times louder against the stone floor with just the two of them.

"I told her I already had a girlfriend. Just to get her off my tail and…" He mumbled something unintelligible.

"What?" Victoire snapped. Teddy sighed for a long time.

"I told her you were my girlfriend."

In perspective, Teddy Lupin was a very lucky boy. He never knew his parents but his grandmother Andromeda was an exceptionally loving woman and he was raised well by her and the rest of his family. His godfather loved him, his "cousins" loved him, and his teachers loved him. He never had to work very hard to be thought of as an "ideal young man". He was the Head Boy at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in its prime after the wars and he was a good Quidditch player. Teddy Lupin had very little to complain about and very little did he complain. In perspective, his life was enviable by most anyone. But not at that moment.

"You told her what?" Victoire shrieked. She raised her voice only on occasion but this was the opportune moment to give her vocal chords a good run. And now she did plunge her hand into the pocket of her robes and whip out her wand. In seconds, it was pointed at Teddy.

"Vic, please! Listen to me—"

"How do you want to die Teddy Lupin? I'm giving you a choice. I'll only ask once." Vic's voice was deadly calm and in a way, this was scarier than her yelling.

"If you would give me just five seconds—"

"Five seconds for what? So you can explain to me how it's _okay_ that I'm your fake girlfriend now?"

Teddy had his hands raised in front of his face but he lowered them slowly. "That's just the thing. You don't need to play along with it. I'll tell Evanna the truth tomorrow."

It took several seconds but Victoire lowered her wand. She had had enough. She sat down right there in the middle of the Great Hall with the Head Boy standing over her looking terrified.

"Teddy this day has been rotten since it started." She mumbled into her hands. Somewhere above her, Teddy had moved closer and was now awkwardly patting her shoulder.

"I'll fix this. If I don't, you can hex me into the next century."

"Next millennia more like." The muffled words issued from somewhere in the heap on the floor that was now Victoire Weasley.

Teddy left then, evidently unsure of what to do. Victoire gathered herself together, pulled her bag onto her shoulder and finally left the Great Hall.

It really was rather funny how life happened by random chance. If Evanna had never intercepted Victoire at the end of dinner, Victoire would have never found out that Teddy Lupin had told Evanna Vic was his girlfriend. And if Teddy hadn't been nearby when the altercation occurred, he wouldn't have had to confess to Vic afterward. But Evanna _did_ confront Victoire and Teddy _did_ confess. And Victoire had no idea how only an hour later, lying in bed though it was not seven thirty in the evening, the most brilliant plan of all brilliant plans ever hatched would hit her.

Teddy may have caused a right mess by concocting an elaborate lie in which Victoire was the star player. But Victoire was positive and dramatic and Katherine Lyle was just a little too sweet and Emmett Carmichael was all too tempting. And if anyone had a reason to help Victoire now, it was Teddy. If only he knew just what kind of help he would be offering.


End file.
